


Interweaving Moments

by Churbooseanon



Category: Red vs. Blue
Genre: Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-06-20
Updated: 2014-06-20
Packaged: 2018-02-05 12:40:51
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,438
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1818898
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Churbooseanon/pseuds/Churbooseanon
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>They spin in and out of each others’ lives, because that is what it is to be a military brat.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Interweaving Moments

**Author's Note:**

> An RvB Happy Hour request that finally sold me completely on Maine/Wash

David’s eight when he first meets Matty. Eight and already tired of the fact that his parents are in the army. Tired of the fact that he’s moved three times in as many years and it isn’t fair that he just barely gets to know the people around him when someone says they have to pick up and move somewhere new where he won’t know anyone. But it’s _duty_ his parents say, and by the time he’s eight he’s learned not to get attached to the people he is in school with, because what is the point?

Except Matty transfers in a few days after him. Except the teacher puts Matty in the seat behind his, and so David gets a long chance to look at Matty that first time, see the hair cut that reminds him a lot of the ones his father gets and his mother insists he doesn’t have to if he wants to try and be normal. Sees the way that Matty doesn’t look around, doesn’t meet anyone’s eyes, doesn’t try to smile at anyone.

He looks at Matty and he knows they are alike. Maybe that is why he risks the connection one more time. Why he purposefully sits by Matty at lunch and doesn’t let himself get scared away when the bigger boy glares at him. Instead he takes out the carrot sticks his mother had cut for him for lunch and holds one out. Maybe Matty sees something in his own eyes, reads something in his silence, or maybe he just likes carrots. Either way the offering is accepted and they eat together quietly and Matty doesn’t glare when David sits next to him the next day. Or the next day. Or the next day. And by the end of the day they talk for the first time.

They get the whole rest of the school year and two months into the next before the news comes. By then they are friends though neither of them says the word out loud like it might be a jinx and that would make everything bad forever. David actually blames himself when his parent’s transfer order comes in because he’d actually let the word almost slip that day at school, actually telling the teacher that no, Matty wasn’t bullying him, it just looked like that when they elbowed each other because Matty was bigger. Matty would never do that to him. They were frien…

He didn’t catch the word soon enough. Couldn’t call it back. When his mother opens the letter and sighs the same sigh she always does he runs out of the house and down the street to the small house that looks just like his that Matty’s family was assigned to and he bangs on the door crying until Matty’s mother answers. She must look at him and know because she steps aside and lets him run upstairs. No one makes him leave Matty’s room all night and he sleeps in his friend’s arms and he hates the world.

* * * * * *

David’s twelve when he transfers into a new school in Arizona and the teacher introduces him to the class. His eyes scan the room and feign attention like he’s learned to do, forces the smile that he’s gotten used to wearing, but he doesn’t intend to know any of these people. They are strangers now, they will be forever. It’s easier that way. Hasn’t let himself be close since he was nine and stupid and hopeful.

Their eyes meet across the room and David holds his breath. He’s bigger, no less bulky, and his hair has grown out a bit, very close to the point when he’d go in for a cut. The name dies on his lips before he lets himself say it because there is no recognition in his eyes, no light, no smile, no happiness. He’s forgotten, left behind, even when there is someone who isn’t a strange. The teacher assigns him the seat next to Matty, calls him Matthew, and David doesn’t slink down the aisle, he’s too good for that. Puts his new things in his new desk and gets out his new notebook and new pencil—his mother believed in fresh starts—and pays attention to his new teacher and not his old friend.

That’s why he flinches when a piece of paper folded up like a football lands on his desk. The sound draws the teacher’s attention and David manages to knock the thing into his lap before her eyes can land on him, can see what just happened. She shrugs and goes back to the lesson and David unfolds the paper as quietly, as secretly as he can.

_I hope you have peanut butter for those carrots._

David can’t help but smile to himself, wider than he has in years, more sincerely than he has since Matty gave him a big hug before he moved away, and he can’t explain why his chest hurts so much when he’s happy. Before lunch the teacher calls him up and offers to get him an older student to mentor him and teach him about the school and David shifts nervously from foot to foot and because he wants her to shut up so he can go talk to Matthew. She notices and asks him what is wrong and he blurts out that he just wants to eat lunch with his friend. She stares down at him and asks who this friend he made so quickly during class was. He spits in the face of chance and says Matthew and runs out just after seeing the shock on her face.

David shares his carrots—no peanut butter—and Matthew shares his package of oreos and apologies that he can’t do much more and promises to talk to his mom about throwing in something extra starting tomorrow.

When David gets home his mother is shocked at his joy and when he asks to go over to Matthew’s house her forehead scrunches as she tries to remember why that name is important and he tells her and her eyes light up and she agrees to walk him to Matthew’s house to reintroduce herself to his mother. David spends the whole afternoon watching Matthew play games on his Playstation and they discuss plans to buy a second controller so they can play together. When he goes home with his mother in the evening he can’t explain why he hurts all over again.

They only get half a year this time, and David doesn’t think it’s because he claims Matthew as his best friend. They both knew it was happening. Matthew told him flat out on the second day that his mother had a transfer order for later in the year. They don’t delude themselves. But the night before they move Matthew spends the night with David and they lay together again despite the sleeping bag rolled out on the floor, and David can’t explain why the difference is important, it just is.

* * * * * *

David’s just turned sixteen and it’s the one of the few times he’s ever actually started at a new school on the first day of the school year. It’s high school and his parents can’t promise him much but they promised to try their best to keep him in one school until he graduates. They’ve already failed. But he learned a lot as a freshman on the other side of the country. He knows what it’s like to kiss someone, to be kissed by someone, and he knows he liked it better when the person kissing him had been taller, bigger, stronger, and decidedly male.

He picks up his schedule, finds his homeroom, gets assigned a locker, and makes it to lunch before he sees an achingly familiar form across the cafeteria and suddenly realizes what that ache in his chest had been that last time. Because it’s back now, with greater force, and he’s terrified of it. Matthew is big, still insanely big, possibly bigger than reasonable, and David is certain those hands can break him if he does the wrong thing. Still, he takes his tray, abandons the people he’d met first period pleading something that he can’t remember because he’s too intent on getting across the room to that shaved head—it looks good on Matthew—and confirming what he already knows has to be true. Because they’ve woven in and out of each others’ lives before, so why not here? Why not now?

He stops at the end of the table Matthew is seated at, hears someone call him ‘Matt’ and immediately amends the name in his mind. Half of them are wearing football jerseys, and the look they give him is baleful. He’s in their territory, and they don’t like it. Sure, he’s built well, he’s an army brat and sometimes there are just habits you end up picking up, such as workout routines. But he isn’t one of them. They see him as fresh meat, something to be put in its place.

One of them moves to stand, but then Matt’s on his feet and they all settle in. There are satisfied looks on some of their faces, anticipation of the beating they feel is coming. David meets those clear green eyes defiantly as Matt looks down at him, and he sees something more than simple recognition deep in them. He doesn’t fight when Matt takes the tray from his hands—his mother hadn’t had time to pack for him this morning—and puts it down on the table. The football dunces seem to nod, to think there is no use wasting perfectly good food. They could easily start in on his meal, except their eyes are on him and Matt. Everyone’s eyes are on him and Matt. David can even see teachers bracing for a fight at the nearby doors.

It makes David worry where this is going to go, worry that he’s read Matt wrong. So he isn’t prepared for the hand at the back of his head or at the small of his back or the lips pressed against his. He’s got time to process his heart leaping into his throat before his own arms wrap around Matt and kiss him back with everything he’s got and fuck all the jeers in the background because he knows they wouldn’t cross Matt, and dear god are those cheers from the football players?

When Matt lets him pull away he’s staring up into those eyes and realizing he did know the look in them, had seen it in the mirror when he thought about Matt this last year. Knows there has to be something similar in his eyes now because the look on Matt’s face is soft, and maybe a little hungry.

And dammit those voices are coming from the jocks.

Matt releases him and there are still angry noises but David doesn’t care because Matt is sitting back down at the table and the person he had been sitting by is sliding over so there is suddenly room for David. A tug at his arm pulls him down next to Matt and they sit close together, thighs touching, as one of the guys on the other side of the table grins and observes that Matt’s ‘finally’ found his David and it was about fucking time too. David can’t help but turn a little bit red at that, more at the thought that Matt’s been waiting to see him, wanting to see him, enough to risk telling other people that. David never would have been brave enough for that. But, for now at least, he doesn’t have to be. Because Matt’s arm is possessive around his shoulder as one of the jocks slides David’s tray into place in front of him, and they all start talking like the conversation had never been interrupted, verbally prodding David to bring him in to cover for the silence that was Matt.

Their bodies are warm where they touch each other, and when the teachers give them harsh looks Matt just glares and David resists the urge to compare him to a mother bear protecting her cub.

When he goes home that day it’s hand in hand with Matt and his mother looks at them at the door and smiles fondly and offers to cut them up some carrots and dig out the peanut butter. She doesn’t even flinch when Matt flat out says that his intentions are far from pure, but Matt does when she comes back immediately with an admonishment to use protection when they get that far. David blushes and Matt chuckles low in the back of his throat and it’s a good sound and David really wishes he’d waited a bit longer and given himself a chance to talk to his parents before this. It wasn’t the best decision, and they go slower with Matt’s family and that makes him feel better even though they already knew. At least they all pretend like it’s a big surprise.

They get three years together. All of high school because when the transfer order comes in Matt’s mom offers to take David in so they can graduate together.

They get four years after that when they go to college together. They sign up as roommates and the first night they push the beds together for extra space. It’s the first time they really feel alone since high school, no chance of parental arrival, so they blow off all the weekend orientation stuff to be together and revel in the feel of skin on skin without restraint. Someone bangs on their wall that first Saturday and David laughs when after the first dorm meeting on Sunday Matt invites the neighbors on both sides—a strange combination of a cheerful kid from Florida and a British transfer student on one side and a fast talking New York ass and warmly smiling laid back guy taller than Matt from somewhere in one of the Dakotas—to enjoy a night of video games. Eyes go wide at the two beds pushed together and no one ever pounds on the walls again to shut them up… Though ‘York’ does develop a habit of leaving passive aggressive notes and Flowers is prone to giving them huge thumbs up in the cafeteria after particularly noisy nights before he returns to staring longingly at Reggie when the British student isn’t looking.

And really, David couldn’t have asked for anything more than what they had.

Which of course made the ring and the question perfect, and the party their friends had thrown after wonderful.


End file.
